Socket structure for concurrent multiple protocol access

Abstract: In a multiprotocol environment, a new socket structure is provided which moves the decision on which protocol to use until the time that the connection is actually made between nodes in the network. The new socket structure is created for every endpoint. All the protocols which could potentially be used to send or receive data is sent a request to create a protocol control block at the time the new socket is created. A selection process determines which of the protocols could be used by the endpoint. The new socket then contains information on each selected protocol. At the time a connection is established, any of the selected protocols could be used. The choice of which protocol to use can be based on user preferences, which protocols are available, the name of the service unit.

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates generally to data communication in a network of computer systems. More particularly, it relates to a communication endpoint structure which enables application programs resident on systems to communicate through such a network irrespective of the protocol for which the application was written and the protocols available on the network. Once upon a time, almost all computer systems were standalone processors to which private peripheral devices such as displays, printers and disk drives were connected, acting independently from any other computer system. Yet, it became apparent that there were substantial gains to be made if several computer systems could be cooperatively coupled together. Today, it has become commonplace to couple a multitude of computer systems into a distributed environment such as a local area or wide area network. However, there are many vendors who have developed their own hardware and software solutions for integrating multiple computer systems. In particular, they have developed different ideas of the format and protocols that should be followed in transporting data through the networks. Some protocols support expedited data transmission by bypassing the standard data flow controls; others require all data to go through the controls. Specialized protocols are used for transport tasks such as establishing and terminating connections between computer systems. Examples of well known communication protocols include System Network Architecture (SNA), Digital Network Architecture (DECnet), Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), Network Basic Input/Output System (NetBIOS), Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) and AppleTalk. Other protocols are known and widely used. Most distributed application programs are written to an application programming interface (API) which assumes a particular communications protocol. However, the distributed environments which most organizations have assembled are quite complex, comprised of confederations of individual networks running different communication protocols. If the transport protocols assumed by the distributed application's API and the transport protocols actually implemented in one or more of the networks on which the organization would like to send its data are not the same, the use of the application is limited. The problems of such heterogeneity in communications protocols is expected to get worse as more organizations begin to communicate with each other through their networks to perform order processing, direct billing or other cross organization activities. While the distributed applications could be rewritten so that they can run over each transport protocol or application gateways can be written for each distributed set of distributed applications, the cost of having programmers write all the necessary code makes these approaches economically unattractive. A preferred solution is presented in copending application, European publication number EP-A-524123, entitled "Compensation for Mismatched Transport Protocols in a Data Communications Network", by R.F. Bird et al, filed July 17, 1991. The application teaches a transport connection layer between a first transport user at one node in the network and a second transport user at a different node in the network. When the transport protocol assumed by the application at the first node is not available in the network, the data being transferred between the two nodes is automatically altered to be compatible with the available transport protocols. Thus, an organization is able to choose application programs solely on the basis of the functions they provide, rather than the protocols which they require. The above referenced application teaches a generalized transport layer. One of the transport structures which is presently used in the Berkeley version of the UNIX (TM) environment is called a socket. A socket is an object that identifies a communication endpoint in a network. A socket hides the protocol of the network architecture beneath from the application. A socket allows the association of an endpoint, such as an application program, with one of the selected protocols. This association occurs when the endpoint is created. An endpoint creation implies a static association of the socket with the protocol, which will remain invariant. However, in a multiprotocol environment, as described in the above referenced application, which facilitates heterogeneous connectivity, a transport endpoint may need to be bound to any of several available protocols after the creation of the endpoint. Therefore, if sockets are to be used in such an environment, a new socket structure which allows dynamic association of the socket with the protocol must be devised. The present invention teaches such a socket structure. Computer Communications, Vol.10, No.1, February 1987, Butterworth, London, GB, pages 21-29, D.Coffield et al, "Tutorial guide to Unix sockets for network communications" discusses the socket interprocess communication facility provided with 4.2 BSD Unix systems. These sockets allow distributed applications to be developed between Unix hosts over a network. A system call creates or acquires a socket and specifies the protocols to be used in subsequent connections using this socket. Thus, the protocols to be used are set at the time of the system call rather than by dynamic association. Summary of the Invention The present invention provides a system and a method for communicating between nodes in a computer network in which a plurality of protocols are useable by network nodes, the method comprising the steps of: creating a socket structure defining communication parameters for respective network nodes, the socket structure having information about a plurality of alternative protocols which are useable by said nodes for inter-node communication, wherein the creating step comprises the steps of: requesting information of each of the plurality of alternative protocols; selecting a set of protocols from the plurality of alternative protocols, which selected protocols are useable by the respective nodes; building a protocol control block for each protocol of the selected set of protocols; and inserting a pointer in the socket structure for each protocol control block of a selected protocol; and at the time communication is requested between said nodes, establishing a connection between said nodes using a protocol control block of a selected one of the set of protocols. The present invention thereby facilitates late binding of an endpoint to a transport protocol in a distributed environment, enabling a more dynamic association between protocol and endpoint. Preferably, the invention allows native access to a protocol by an application. It is also preferred that the invention provides the necessary information for non-native connections to a protocol. The invention provides, in a preferred embodiment, a new socket structure which moves the decision on which protocol to use to the time that the connection is actually made between nodes in the network. In a multiprotocol network, the new socket structure can be created for every endpoint. For all of the protocols which could potentially be used to send or receive data a request is made to create a protocol control block at the time the new socket is created. A selection process determines which of the protocols could potentially be used by a given endpoint. The new socket for the endpoint then contains information on each of the selected protocols. At the time a connection is established, any of the selected protocols could be used. Native or non-native connections can be made. The choice of which protocol to use or the order of protocol preference can be based on user preferences through configuration, the local cache, or information from the named service unit. Brief Description of the Drawings The invention will now be described in more detail, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: FIG. 1 is a diagram of two single protocol networks coupled together through a multiprotocol transport network. FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the transport interface used according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a diagram of a conventional socket control block. FIG. 4 is a diagram of the socket control block according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of the creation of a socket according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of establishing a connection in a multiprotocol transport network environment, using a multiprotocol socket according to the invention. FIG. 7 is a representation of a computer system including system unit, keyboard, mouse and display. FIG. 8 is a block diagram of the computer system components depicted in FIG. 7. Detailed Description of the Drawings The following description describes a socket based architecture. However, the invention is not limited to sockets and could be applied to similar communication endpoint objects in other operating systems. Although the following description contains an adequate disclosure of conventional socket and network architecture to allow one skilled in the art to understand the present invention, the reader is referred to The Design and Implementation of the 4.3 BSD UNIX Operating System by S. J. Leffler et al., Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1989, for a more complete understanding of operating system based on the Berkeley version of UNIX (TM). Such operating systems are well known. FIG. 1 shows three single protocol networks 10, 12, 14 which are interconnected through a gateway 59 built according to the principles of the present invention. With the growth of network distributed environments, it is not uncommon to see networks using four or five different protocols, such as TCP/IP, NetBIOS, SNA or AppleTALK. Since applications which run on one network will not often run with applications on the other, transport of data throughout the network is hindered. As discussed above, the MultiProtocol Transport Network (MPTN) 16 as taught in the above referenced application addresses these problems by defining an interface and a compensation mechanism to a set of transport services that provide connections across a plurality of transport protocols. By providing a transport boundary between the networks and the applications resident on systems, MPTN provides a common transport interface so that messages from the applications can be transported over any protocol in the network. As shown in FIG. 1, hosts 20 and 22 are coupled to the multiprotocol transport network 16. While the MPTN 16 appears as though it is a single logical network having a single protocol, host 20 is coupled to a first network 10 which communicates via protocol X, e.g., TCP/IP, and host 22 is coupled to a second network 12 which communicates via protocol Y, e.g., NetBIOS. Application program A 24 resident in one of the hosts 20 coupled to the MPTN network 16 wishes to communicate to application B 26 resident in another host 22 also coupled to the network 16. Upon application A's call to the socket layer 27, a socket is created by the socket layer 27 defining application A as an endpoint. Sockets contain information about their type, the supporting protocols used in the transport layer 28 and their state. A connection request goes through the transport layer 28, the network layer 29 and the network interface layer 30 which add the necessary control and data information before the message is sent out on the network 54. Compensation for the differences between protocol y and X is carried out by the transport layer as taught by the above referenced application. FIG. 2 depicts the code modules in memory at a computer system which is coupled to the multiprotocol transport network in greater detail. The socket programming interface 60 and common transport semantics 62 correspond to the socket layer and separate the applications 64, 66, 68 from the service drivers 70, 72, 74. Three types of applications 64, 66, 68 are shown in the application layer. To utilize the socket structure of the present invention, NetBIOS applications would be rewritten to the socket API to become the NetBIOS socket application 66. The standard local IPC socket application 64 and TCP/IP applications 68 are already written to a standardized socket programming interface and so would require an minimum of revisions. The common transport semantics 62, include the socket control blocks, which will be described in greater detail below. An interface between the socket layer and the transport layer is comprised by the local IPC service driver 70, the NetBIOS service driver 72 and the INet service driver 74 which correspond to the applications in the application layer. The service drivers are used to emulate the common transport semantics for the transport protocol drivers in the transport layer. In the present invention, they may also contain the compensating means described in the above referenced application which converts a message intended for a first protocol by the application to a second protocol supported by the network. The transport layer includes the NetBIOS 76 and TCP/IP 78 protocol drivers which cause the application message to conform to the protocol format. There is no corresponding local IPC module as it describes a local protocol whose messages are not placed on the network. The network and network interface layers are not pictured, the latter would include device drivers for the I/O hardware which couples the computer system to the network, e.g. a token ring or ethernet driver; the former might include drivers written to the well known NDIS interface. A socket is the object in the Berkeley version of UNIX(TM) from which messages are sent and received. Sockets are created within a communication domain as files are created within a file system. A communication domain summarizes the sets of protocols, the naming conventions, the hardware which may be a particular network and may use an address which refers to the communication domain. The internet domain specified by the address family AF_INET; the NetBIOS domain is referenced by the address family AF_NETBIOS. A connection is a means by which the identity of the sending socket is not required to be sent with each packet of data. The identity of each communication endpoint is exchanged prior to any transmission of data and is maintained at the transmitting and receiving nodes, so that the distributed applications at each end can request the socket information at any time. When an application creates a socket endpoint for a certain protocol and the protocol chosen by the transport network matches that protocol, native networking has occurred. For example, the INet protocol is used to support the INet address family and NetBIOS supports the NetBIOS address family. On the other hand, when the transport protocol does not match the socket endpoint of an application it is termed non-native networking. Using the present invention, however, the application is unaware that a different transport protocol is being used to connect with other nodes in the network. In the present invention, the socket interface is used to connect between replicas of a distributed application or the client and server portions of a client/server application using a variety of transport protocols. The application can select the transport protocol or request that the socket layer determine the protocol. With the non-native networking feature of the present invention, applications written to communicate with one another using one protocol can choose to communicate on another transport protocol which might be optimized for the network environment. For example, an application written for TCP/IP could communicate using the NetBIOS protocol over the network,giving the distributed application a significant performance gain. A conventional socket control block is depicted in FIG. 3, a socket control block 100 contains information about the socket, including send and receive data queues, their type, the supporting protocol, their state and socket identifier. The socket control block 100 includes a protocol switch table pointer 104 and a protocol control block pointer 106. The pointers are used to locate the protocol switch table (not pictured) and the protocol control block 102 respectively. The protocol switch table contains protocol related information, such as entry points to protocol, characteristics of the protocol, certain aspects of its operation which are pertinent to the operation of the socket and so forth. The socket layer interacts with a protocol in the transport layer through the protocol switch table. The user request routine PR_USRREQ is the interface between a protocol and the socket. The protocol control block contains protocol specific information which is used by the protocol and is dependent upon the protocol. A socket control block according to the present invention is shown in FIG. 4. Here, the socket control block 110 is shown broken into two sections, the main socket control block which is largely identical to the conventional socket control block above and the MPTN extension 112 which contains many of the features necessary for the present invention. Both are linked together by a multiprotocol transport network extension 113. Each of the protocols which could be potentially used to send or receive data is sent a request to create a protocol control block 120, 122 at the time the new socket is created. After a selection procedure, the new socket then contains information regarding each selected protocol, the protocol switch table pointer 114, 118, the protocol control block pointer 116, 119, and a pointer to a interface address if applicable for the particular protocol (not pictured). As above, the protocol switch table pointer refers to a respective protocol switch table which defines various entry points for that protocol. Also, the protocol control blocks 120, 122 contain protocol specific information. At the time of socket creation, no connection is made to any particular protocol to the application endpoint. Connection implies an association of the connection-requestor socket of the requesting application to another connection-acceptor socket. It can be viewed as a communication wire running between the two sockets that are "connected", potentially in two different continents, providing the ability for both of them to send and receive messages. There is no difference between a transmitting socket and a receiving socket for the present invention. After a connection, each can send or receive data. The decision on which protocol to use is delayed until the time that the connection is actually made. At the time of establishing a connection, any of the network interfaces in a protocol could be used. The order in which the pointers which refer to the protocols and network interfaces is based on user preference, information from the named service unit or the capability of the protocol the socket extension 112 which contains the pointers 114, 116, 118 and 119, also includes state information on the socket and the multiprotocol transport network. The socket extension 112 is used by the socket layer to manage the socket and MPTN states. From the list of available protocols, the socket layer picks those protocols that support the requested socket domain and the type of communication (datagrams, streams, etc), as described in the flow diagram for socket creation described below. A sample socket control block structure is given in the code below: Conventional socket creation starts with a call to the socket API. A domain table is searched for the address family, the type and protocol which is desired by the application. If a match is found the protocol switch table entry is set in the socket control block. Next, the user requests entry and the selected protocol is called to create of the protocol control block. If a match is not found in the domain table for the address family, type and protocol desired by the application, an error is returned to the application. FIG. 5 depicts the process of creating a socket according to the present invention. The process begins with a socket creation request 150 from an application to the socket API, the application wishes to send or receive data across the network. The command to the socket API for the request takes the form of socket=(AF, *, type, proto). "AF" refers to the address family and communication domain; "type" refers to one of the socket types defined in a system header file. The "proto" or protocol parameter is used to indicate that a specific protocol is to be used. A test is performed in step 152 to determine if "proto" is specified. If so, the normal socket creation process in step 154 is carried out and the process ends, step 155. If "proto" is not specified, the process continues to create a multiprotocol socket. Each protocol is associated with a protocol switch table. For each protocol switch table, step 155, tests are performed whether the type and address family of the requesting endpoint, steps 158 and 160, are matched by the protocol. In step 158 the test for "type" match is performed. If the test fails, the process returns for the next protocol switch table, step 156. If the test succeeds, the test for address family match is performed in step 160. Both the "type" and "family" are represented as integers. By matching, the socket layer compares the 'type' and "address family" field supplied by the user and the 'type' and "address family" fields in the protocol. If a match is found for both type and address family, the protocol is selected as a candidate protocol and set in the socket extension with pointers to the protocol switch table and protocol control block, step 162. If there is no match, the process determines whether the address family is supported non-natively in the network, step 164. If the protocol is supported, step 166, the protocol is selected as a candidate protocol and set in the socket extension with pointers to the protocol switch table and protocol control block, step 162. If the protocol is not supported, in step 166, a test is performed to determine whether it is the last protocol switch table. If not, the process returns to step 156. If it is the last protocol switch table, the process ends, step 170. The protocol pointers can be reordered within the extension according to the application or user preference through the use of a configuration tool or according to information from the named server. In FIG. 6, the process to establish a connection using the multiprotocol socket is described. The process begins in step 200 where the socket layer tries connecting to a specified destination using the first protocol from the list of protocols in the socket extension. The choice of which of the protocols to try first can be based on the configuration of user specified preference order of protocols. If the connection succeeds, step 222, the process ends in step 223. If not, the next protocol is used to try to establish a connection in step 224. Tests are performed determine whether a connection is made, step 226. If so, the process ends. If a connection is not made, a test is performed to determine whether it is the last protocol in the socket extension. If not, the next protocol in the extension is tested, step 224. If all the protocols used when creating the socket have failed to provide the connection, the transport provider returns a notification of failure to the application, step 232. As mentioned previously, the invention finds use in a plurality of computers which are part of a network such as a Local Area Network or wide Area Network. Although the specific choice of computer in these networks is limited only by performance and storage requirements, computers in the IBM PS/2 (TM) series of computers could be used in the present invention. For additional information on IBM's PS/2 series of computers, the reader is referred to Technical Reference Manual Personal Systems/2 Model 50, 60 Systems IBM Corporation, Part No. 68X2224 Order Number S68X-2224 and Technical Reference Manual Personal Systems/2 (Model 80) IBM Corporation Part No. 68X 2256 Order Number S68X-2254. One operating system which an IBM PS/2 personal computer may run is IBM's OS/2 2.0 (TM). For more information on the IBM OS/2 2.0 Operating System, the reader is referred to OS/2 2.0 Technical Library. Programming guide Vol. 1. 2. 3 Version 2.00 Order Nos. 10G6261, 10G6495, 10G6494. In the alternative, the computer system might be in the IBM RISC System/6000 (TM) line of computers which run on the AIX (TM) operating system. The various models of the RISC System/6000 are described in many publications of the IBM Corporation, for example, RISC System/6000, 7073 and 7016 POWERstation and POWERserver Hardware Technical reference, Order No. SA23-2644-00. The AIX operating system is described in General Concepts and Procedure--AIX Version 3 for RISC System/6000 Order No. SC23-2202-00 as well as other publications of the IBM Corporation. In lieu of the cited references, the reader is offered the following general description of a computer system which could be utilized to practice the present invention. In FIG. 7, a computer 310, comprising a system unit 311, a keyboard 312, a mouse 313 and a display 314 are depicted. The screen 316 of display device 314 is used to present the visual changes to the data object. The graphical user interface supported by the operating system allows the user to use a point and shoot method of input by moving the pointer 315 to an icon representing a data object at a particular location on the screen 316 and press one of the mouse buttons to perform a user command or selection. FIG. 8 shows a block diagram of the components of the computer shown in FIG. 7. The system unit 11 includes a system bus or plurality of system buses 21 to which various components are coupled and by which communication between the various components is accomplished. The microprocessor 322 is connected to the system bus 321 and is supported by read only memory (ROM) 323 and random access memory (RAM) 324 also connected to system bus 321. A microprocessor in the IBM multimedia PS/2 series of computers is one of the Intel family of microprocessors including the 386 or 486 microprocessors. However, other microprocessors included, but not limited to, Motorola's family of microprocessors such as the 68000, 68020 or the 68030 microprocessors and various Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) microprocessors manufactured by IBM, Hewlett Packard, Sun, Intel, Motorola and others may be used in the specific computer. The ROM 323 contains among other code the Basic Input-Output system (BIOS) which controls basic hardware operations such as the interaction and the disk drives and the keyboard. The RAM 324 is the main memory into which the operating system, transport providers and application programs are loaded. The memory management chip 325 is connected to the system bus 321 and controls direct memory access operations including, passing data between the RAM 324 and hard disk drive 326 and floppy disk drive 327. The CD ROM 332 is also coupled to the system bus 321. Also connected to the system bus 321 are various I/O controllers: The keyboard controller 328, the mouse controller 329, the video controller 330, and the audio controller 331 which control their respective hardware, the keyboard 312, the mouse 313, the display 314 and the speaker 315. Also coupled to the system bus 321 is the digital signal processor 333 which corrects the sound produced by the speaker 315 and is preferably incorporated into the audio controller 331. An I/O controller 340 such as a Token Ring Adapter enables communication over a network 342 to other similarly configured data processing systems. The preceding description has described the principles of the present invention in terms of a particular communications endpoint object, a socket, in the socket layer between the application layer and transport layer. The principles of the invention could be extended to provide similarly configured communication endpoint objects in other layers. For example, an object in the network interface layer could be used to monitor a plurality of underlaying MAC drivers to that data could be sent or received over a plurality of MAC protocols to different types of networks.

Claims: A method for communicating between nodes (20,22) in a computer network in which a plurality of protocols are useable by network nodes, the method comprising the steps of: creating a socket structure (110,112) defining communication parameters for respective network nodes, the socket structure having information about a plurality of alternative protocols which are useable by said nodes for inter-node communication, wherein the creating step comprises the steps of: requesting information of each of the plurality of alternative protocols; selecting (162) a set of protocols from the plurality of alternative protocols, which selected protocols are useable by the respective nodes; building a protocol control block (120,122) for each protocol of the selected set of protocols; and inserting a pointer (116,119) in the socket structure (112) for each protocol control block of a selected protocol; and at the time communication is requested between said nodes, establishing (200) a connection between said nodes using a protocol control block of a selected one of the set of protocols. A method according to claim 1, wherein the selected protocol is chosen based on user preferences. A method according to claim 2, further comprising the step of creating a list of the selected set of protocols ordered according to user preferences and the step of establishing a connection using a selected one of the set of protocols comprises attempting to establish the connection by successively using the protocols (200,224) in their order in the list until the connection is successfully established (222,226). A method according to claim 1, wherein the selected protocol is chosen based on a capability of the selected protocol. A method according to claim 1, wherein the order in which the pointers are inserted is based on user preference. A method according to claim 1 wherein the selecting step comprises the steps of: determining (158,160) whether there is a match for a first protocol for a first set of protocol parameters, the first protocol corresponding to a first pointer in the socket; and, responsive to finding no match for the first protocol, determining (164) whether the first protocol is supported non-natively in the network. A system for communicating between nodes in a computer network in which a plurality of protocols are useable by network nodes, the system comprising: means for creating a socket structure defining communication parameters for respective network nodes, which socket structure has information about a plurality of alternative protocols useable by said nodes for inter-node communication, wherein the means for creating comprises: means for requesting information of each of the plurality of alternative protocols; means for selecting a set of protocols from said plurality of alternative protocols; means for building a protocol control block for each protocol of the selected set of protocols; and, means for inserting a pointer in the socket structure for each protocol control block of a selected protocol; and, means for establishing a connection between said nodes using a protocol control block of one of the plurality of protocols which is selected at the time communication is requested between said nodes. A system according to claim 7, which further comprises: means for determining whether there is a match for a first protocol for a first set of protocol parameters, the first protocol corresponding to a first pointer in the socket; and, means for determining, responsive to finding no match for the first protocol, whether the first protocol is supported non-natively in the network. A computer program comprising computer readable program code implementing a set of instructions for controlling the operation of a computer system on which it runs to perform a method for communicating between nodes in a computer network in which a plurality of protocols are useable by network nodes, the method comprising the steps of: creating a socket structure defining communication parameters for respective network nodes, the socket structure having information about a plurality of alternative protocols which are useable by said nodes for inter-node communication, wherein the creating step comprises the steps of: requesting information of each of the plurality of alternative protocols; selecting a set of protocols from the plurality of alternative protocols, which selected protocols are useable by the respective nodes; building a protocol control block for each protocol of the selected set of protocols; and inserting a pointer in the socket structure for each protocol control block of a selected protocol; and at the time communication is requested between said nodes, establishing (200) a connection between said nodes using a protocol control block of a selected one of the set of protocols.

Inventors: CHENG CHUNGSIANG, SHARMA MOHAN BYRAPPA, YEUNG YUE, CHENG, CHUNGSIANG, SHARMA, MOHAN BYRAPPA, YEUNG, YUE
Applicants: IBM, INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
Application year: 1994
Main classification: G06F15
IPC codes: G06F13, H04L29